


Excuses

by boywonder



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6917692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boywonder/pseuds/boywonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Captain, we need you on the bridge," came Sulu's voice.</p>
<p>"I gotta go. I'll see you on the ground. Don't forget to buckle up, huh?" Jim said, and the mask he wore for everyone else slid effortlessly into place, locked there with his usual half-smirk.</p>
<p>"Don't patronize me, <i>Captain</i>," Bones said, making sure the last word sounded more like an insult than any insult would have managed to do.</p>
<p>Jim's smirk morphed into a grin and he sauntered toward the doorway. "I would <i>never</i>," he said, not meaning it at all.</p>
<p>Bones watched him go and tried not to worry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excuses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jiokra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiokra/gifts).



"Kid, you gotta sit still long enough to let me make sure you don't have damage to your trachea."

Bones' order was exactly that. It wasn't a request, and it wasn't a suggestion. He hadn't had much chance to chase Jim around, especially with so many people in serious danger of dying, but now that they were all stabilized and the ship was getting ready to go back to the ground, he wouldn't let up.

"It's _Captain_ , not _kid_ ," Jim said, though the smirk he pasted on his face didn't reach his eyes.

Bones, who had never been fooled by Jim's bullshit anyway, was having none of it.

"It _was_ Captain - which you didn't even deserve, by the way - and then we got the _actual_ captain back. Now it's _sit the hell down Jim_ before I find a tranquilizer."

Jim rolled his eyes and moved to go around his friend. "Bones, I don't have time-"

Bones countered him, stopping him with one arm across the walkway. "Make time."

Jim opened his mouth to argue, but the look on Bones' face stopped him. For a second, his bravado faded, and he looked like exactly what he was: a man who had been awake for too many hours, who had seen a lot of horrors, and who was pretending he wasn't anywhere near as injured as he actually was.

He caved, and nodded. "Okay, fine. We're landing in, what, twenty minutes? I'll give you five."

"Fifteen," Bones countered.

"Seven," Jim said, frowning.

"Ten, and you sit _the whole time_ ," Bones came back, with a tone that did not accept argument.

Jim tried hard not to roll his eyes again. He nodded, and waved a hand vaguely in the direction Bones had come from. 

Bones pursed his lips and looked at Jim with skepticism for a moment.

"Clock's ticking, Bones."

Bones shook his head and shoved off the wall. "Yeah, come on."

He led Jim to an empty crewman's quarters that had been repurposed into a triage area. Sickbay was too full of people in once-critical, now-stable condition, so there were several of these in the less-damaged areas of the ship.

Bones herded Jim into the room and had him sit on the edge of the bed.

"Shouldn't you be, I don't know, doctoring the actual wounded?"

"I've done that, and I'm not the only person on this ship still capable of looking after 'em, which you well know. Take your shirt off."

Jim sighed overdramatically but did as he was told.

Bones' expression changed as he looked at Jim, taking in the bruises on his ribs and along his neck. The doctor's face usually displayed different degrees of irritation, but that fell away, replaced with concern.

"Damnit, Jim," he breathed, softly. "You should've let me do this a lot sooner."

"It's fine," Jim said, though none of his usual bravado was present in his tone. He wasn't the best at being reassuring, but he at least managed sincerity.

Bones swallowed, looked like he was going to say something, and thought better of it. He shook his head, forced himself to return to his usual annoyed expression, and put a hand on Jim's shoulder. "Next time you get hurt on a mission, I'm not taking any of this heroic, put-others-first crap from you. You let me look at you when I tell you, not the other way around."

Jim didn't answer.

Bones wasn't exactly _gentle_ in his examination, but Jim clenched his jaw and didn't complain - not about Bones' roughness, not about how cold his hands were, not about the equipment used in the scans. He didn't even complain when the time went over ten minutes.

"Looks like you cracked those ribs pretty good, but they're not broken. You got a lot more damage to your throat than I've have thought. I knew Vulcans were strong and everything, but-"

"So are Romulans."

"Excuse me?"

"Romulans. Nero and his crew were Romulans."

"I'm aware of that. What exactly are you saying?"

Jim reached for his shirt and pulled it back on over his head. "Spock isn't the only one who choked me, is what I'm saying."

"You're joking."

"Do I look like I'm joking? Apparently that's something else Vulcans and Romulans have in common - a penchant for choking people."

If Bones had rolled his eyes any harder, they'd have rolled right out of his head. "For choking _you_ , maybe. You do have a way of pushing their buttons, don't you?"

Jim chuckled and stood up. "Guess so."

Bones turned around from where he was fussing with equipment and looked right at Jim. "You're damn lucky you didn't get your fool self killed, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know."

"We might all be lucky your puppy dog eyes got you on this ship, but _you're_ lucky you're not either floating in space or coming home in a box."

"I don't need this lecture, Bones-"

"Apparently, you _do_. Do you know why I let you guilt me into this in the first place? Even you can't be too obtuse, can you?"

"You told me. Blah blah puppy dog face." Jim was both unimpressed...and not following.

"It's because you're my best friend, Jim. Probably my only friend, when it comes down to it. That's why I can't stand that sad face. And that's why there's no way I'm letting you get away from medical again so easily. They're singing your praises back down on the ground, and whether you deserve or not doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that they're always singing them while you're _alive_."

Jim was a little taken aback by Bones' sudden confession. He walked back over to Bones and put his hand on the older man's shoulder this time. "You're mine too, you know. And don't worry about me. I'm always gonna come back alive."

Bones' mouth was a tight line. He looked into Jim's eyes for a long moment. "That's always true right up until it isn't."

"Yeah, well. That's what I got you for, isn't it, _Doctor_?"

Bones opened his mouth to answer, probably with something scathing, but they were interrupted by the sound of the intercom.

"Captain, we need you on the bridge," came Sulu's voice.

"I gotta go. I'll see you on the ground. Don't forget to buckle up, huh?" Jim said, and the mask he wore for everyone else slid effortlessly into place, locked there with his usual half-smirk.

"Don't patronize me, _Captain_ ," Bones said, making sure the last word sounded more like an insult than any insult would have managed to do.

Jim's smirk morphed into a grin and he sauntered toward the doorway. "I would _never_ ," he said, not meaning it at all.

Bones watched him go and tried not to worry.

* * *

The first time Jim was injured on a mission, Bones lectured him for half an hour on it. It wasn't really anything serious, just a non-critical head wound. Bones treated it like it was a possible death sentence and made Jim stay in bed for twenty-four full hours before he let him go. After that, Jim was a _little_ more careful. Bones got the feeling his friend was avoiding him, but the ship had to keep running and Jim had to figure out how to captain it.

Every now and then they'd pass each other in the halls or they'd be on meal schedules that overlapped a little. Still, it wasn't like when they'd been at the Academy and had had regular interactions.

Bones would catch Jim in the middle of a conversation with some young, starry-eyed crew member (usually women, though definitely not always human), smiling his award-winning smile and looking at them like he only had eyes for them. It was all Bones could do not to groan out loud. Jim, of course, had always been exactly like that. Only now, people actually thought he was some kind of hero, so they paid even more attention than they had before.

Bones tried not to miss the times Jim would fall into his room, half-drunk after some tryst he'd engaged in in lieu of studying. 

Eventually, Jim's recklessness got him hurt again, and he landed in Sickbay with something resembling intergalactic road rash all up one side of his torso.

"How the hell did you even manage that?" Bones said, narrowing his eyes at Jim's side.

"I rolled under a rock."

"Doing what, seventy-five down the interstate?" Bones said, dryly.

"Something like that. Look, can you hurry it up, I have things-"

"I will _not_ 'hurry it up.' That would be irresponsible. Besides, you're allergic to half the things I'd normally put on abraded skin. Now just sit there until I find something that won't give you hives."

"You're not going to put me on bed rest again, are you?"

"That depends. You hit your head?"

" _No_ ," Jim responded, sounded more like a petulant teenager than the captain of a starship.

"Then probably not," Bones replied, all business, ignoring the whine in his friend's - his captain's - tone.

He found something that won't irritate Jim's oddly sensitive skin and slathered it on the rash. It _stung_ , and unlike the time before Jim was a real captain, Jim wasn't quiet about it. He didn't clench his teeth and accept it. Instead, he squirmed and yelled and bitched about it until Bones threatened bed rest after all.

"Don't be such a baby. It's gotta hurt or it won't heal. You of all people should know that, all the injuries you get."

"I have _no idea_ what you're talking about, Bones, I haven't been really injured since that head thing."

" _Really_ being the key word."

Bones finished with the salve and studied Jim for a minute.

"Being your doctor is probably the most stressful job I ever could have signed up for. You take too many risks."

"I'm fine, Bones."

"This time."

"All times."

Jim left after that, as if it didn't matter. Bones tried to be mad instead of worried.

The next time, it was a broken arm. Bones didn't even bother with the lecture, but he also didn't bother setting it as gently as he probably should have. He didn't say anything the whole time.

Jim tried to talk to him, to explain, to apologize, to _anything_ , but he wasn't having it.

Finally, he sealed the cast and glared down at Jim, sitting on the edge of the exam table. Of course, this wasn't some archaic hospital ward; this was a state of the art sickbay on a state of the art starship. It wouldn't take very long for the bone to heal, so Jim didn't need to stay or really worry too much about it. The cast was inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as it could have been.

"I don't want to hear your excuses. Just once, I wish you'd come in here with a skinned knee or a bloody nose and not some worrying injury."

"If I got a bloody nose, I wouldn't need to bother you with it."

"It's my _job_ , Jim. I'm a _doctor_. That's what I _do_."

"Well, yeah, but you have more important things-"

"There is almost nothing I can think of more important than keeping you safe and uninjured."

Bones' words struck some kind of chord in the captain - enough to shut him up, anyway.

"Thanks," he mumbled, after a minute. Then he was gone again.

Two weeks later, Jim was back in sick bay. This time, he _did_ have a bloody nose. Bones would have laughed if it wasn't so absurd.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked. 

Jim frowned at Bones around the tissues jammed up his nose and said, "I thought you wanted me to come in with something mundane."

"Uh-huh."

"So you want me to not do this?"

"I want you to not hurt yourself, but I guess this is the next best thing."

It continued on that way for a couple months. Every week or two, Jim would come in with some seemingly innocuous injury. Bones wouldn't have to give him a lecture or worry about it.

The fifth time it happened, Bones crossed his arms and looked down at Jim with a deeper-than-usual frown.

"What?"

"What the hell are you doing this for?"

"Doing what?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you kept getting these so-called _injuries_ just so you'd end up here. I've known you for years, kid, and even you don't get hurt this often."

Jim shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe I miss you."

"Don't give me that bullshit."

"What bullshit? Maybe I _do_ miss you."

"That's what you tell a girl whose name you can't remember who you've been chasing around for a week, not what you tell your doctor."

"No, it's what I tell my best friend who I never see unless I get hurt."

It was Bones' turn to be struck by Jim's words. He sighed, and uncrossed his arms.

"Jim-"

"Bones, look. I know you worry about me, okay? And that's fine, but, can't I see you when you don't have to worry about me?"

"You're a busy captain now."

"Yeah, but it's not like I'm busy captaining twenty-four hours a day. Do you want to have lunch with me?"

"Are you asking me on a _date_?"

Jim shrugged. "Is it working?"

"Not even a little."

Jim laughed and stood up. "So tomorrow then?"

"In your dreams, kid."

"I'll save you a seat," Jim said, eyes sparkling as he practically glided out of sickbay.

Bones bit back a smile.

"See you then, Jim," he said to the empty room.


End file.
